The first core update of the 2025 year, the March 2025 core update, is now done rolling out and complete. It started on March 13, 2025 and completed about 14 days later on March 27, 2025. This update was a typical core update where Google updates its core ranking system to make search results more relevant and helpful.
This update followed the December 2024 core update. It took a few months for Google to release a new core update despite expecting the core updates to be more frequent in 2025.
What Google said. Google said about this core update:
“The rollout was complete as of March 27, 2025.”
What we saw. The initial rollout seemed to kick in within a few days after the update was announced. Some sites saw big swings both up and down, in terms, of ranking improvements or decline. But this update did not seem as widespread as some previous core updates, where it had a wider impact on a more diverse site of sites. That is not to say this update was not big for those who were impacted by it – it 100% was very big for those sites.
During the update, some of the tracking tools were tripped up by some Google Search result page changes. That may make it hard for some to track the impact of this update. But you can use Google Search Console to see your impact for your site and see position changes for your most popular keywords.
Then, we saw some additional volatility spike at the tail end of this update.
Previous communication. Google told us weeks ago that an update was coming soon but websites negatively impacted by the September 2023 helpful content update should not expect to see big recoveries. It is too soon to know what type of impact this November core update will have.
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. Google has not really given much new advice here but here is the past advice the company provided:
- There aren’t specific actions to take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages.
- Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
- Google said you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change would be after another core update.
In short, write helpful content for people and not to rank in search engines.
- “There’s nothing new or special that creators need to do for this update as long as they’ve been making satisfying content meant for people. For those that might not be ranking as well, we strongly encourage reading our creating helpful, reliable, people-first content help page,” Google said previously.
For more details on Google core updates, you can read Google’s documentation.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
- The March 2025 core update was on Mar. 13 and ended on Mar. 27.
- The December 2024 core update was on Dec. 12 and ended on Dec. 18.
- The August 2024 core update was on Aug. 15 and ended on Sept. 3.
- The March 2024 core update was on March 5 and ended on April 19.
- The November 2023 core update was on Nov. 2 and ended on Nov. 28.
- The October 2023 core update was on Oct. 5 and ended on Oct. 19
- The August 2023 core update was on Aug. 22 and ended Sept. 7.
- The March 2023 core update was on March 15 and ended March 28.
Why we care. Now that this March 2025 core update is done, you can start to dig in to see how you are your clients were impacted. You can review Google’s guidance and continue to improve your site, which hopefully will lead to better Google ranking in the future. Google releases core update every few to several months, so you should always continue to work on improving your site and the content on your site.
Future updates may benefit your site’s ranking and Google traffic – so always be working on improvements – not just for Google Search but also for your website users.
source https://searchengineland.com/google-march-2025-core-update-rollout-is-now-complete-453364
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